How did you become an Arsenal fan?

Im born in 1987 so im too young to go that far back with history but look left and see which team i follow and that should answer your question

as sad as it is to say but if he didnt go to Arsenal and went to Tottenham..i guess i would have been a Spur now

 

West Ham were the first English club I had ever heard of, but I didn't have cable, so I couldn't catch a lot of games. I was working as a temp receptionist back in early 2001 and was bored out of my mind, so I hit up uefa.com and found that they had a Champions League match-tracker. I turned it on and Arsenal happened to be playing, so I kept up with their game. I forget who they were playing, but I recall them winning by a slim margin. That spiralled into me visiting any Arsenal-related website I could find and absorbing everything there was to know about the Gunners. The first Premier League game I actually watched was Arsenal 1-1 Chelsea in August '01. From then on, I was hooked.

One sad note: on September 11, I was trying to figure out how I could get into DC to watch Real Mallorca v Arsenal in a CL group game. Needless to say, I gave up pretty quickly.

 

I don't know why I'm a Arsenal fan, I could easily be a scummer.

But the main reason is, when I was in infant school, my class was basically split between scum and Arsenal. All my friends were gooners and all my enemies were scum. Simple.

 

01-02 season I began watching the Premier League in my last year of college. I joined the fsw fantasy football league and began following the league. I believe Ashley cole was then rated at like 500,000 so he was a staple early on in the season. As I followed cole, then the rest of the team, I knew that this was the style of play I liked to see in a football team. Then Dennis Bergkamp engraved his legendary status in my memory with the icredible goal he had against Newcastle and more specifically Nikos Dabizas ("...I meant to do that..."). I was hooked and followed the team to double glory that season...

GP

 

I moved to England in 1973 as an Air Force brat. I played soccer already and the base league had teams named after English teams. My coach, who knew nothing about soccer when he'd moved there in 1971 (he'd been a fast pitch softball player) got caught up in the Double and so he was an Arsenal fan. My team for the first two years was Arsenal, and I wore the red and white jersey that Henrik's already alluded to.

The challenge being an Arsenal fan in those days is that we were really pretty poor, finishing just 2 and 3 spots ahead of relegation in 75 and 76. Our best player was Alan Ball, he of the English 66 WC team, and in the mid-70s he'd been named England's captain, but he was a feckless player, pretty much playing out the string whilst for Arsenal.

My first game at Highbury I saw Charlie George in a Derby uniform and my second game I saw Ray Kennedy in Liverpool's stripe. I saw Frank McLintock of QPR play at Ipswich. Three of the main contributors from the 71 Double team playing for someone else, pretty disappointing. The only excitement my three years following the team was generated by watching Brian Kidd and Liam Brady come up through the ranks.

My alltime favorite game reflects how bad we were. In the 75-76 season West Ham was a good team, maybe top 5 or 6, and for whatever reason, most of the Americans at my school were West Ham fans. We beat them 6-1 and for one glorious week, I was the king of the school. Winning the 89 title doesn't compare to West Ham...

I moved back to the states in summer of 1976. Two months into the season, we purchased Malcolm MacDonald, then the best scorer in the 1st Division, from Newcastle, and we were a top 5 team. Two years later we got Pat Jennings from the Spurs and we've never sucked since.

 

I'm a recent fan. I watched Arsenal beat out ManUre for the title in '98, but I did not become a fan until DB's incredible goal against Argentina in the summer's world cup. I decided after that I had to support his team, and the rest is history. I am still scarred by that JFH goal at Leeds late the next season, which allowed ManUre to pip us for the title and to go on and win the treble.

One nice thing about becoming a fan only recently is that it never occurred to me to support Sp*rs. To me, they were just another mediocre team, and it took a couple of seasons before I realized that they were considered out rivals.

 

The first time I heard of Arsenal I f'ing hated them. In the early 90's I would go to Barnes & Noble Warehouse because they got the new editions of Soccer America and World Soccer first so I would go there to keep track of Milan and Barca (following the Dutch superstars as many on this board do). When I read that John Harkes (Sheffield Wednseday) had become the first American to score in a cup final at Wembley I was so excited I nearly got kicked out of the store. When I read the rest of the story I cursed the team that had the audacity to beat Harkesy's.

I didn't get any tv coverage of the English leagues until the late 90's so I really didn't care about any of the teams. Once I started to get weekly highlight shows and match-of-the-week type shows I was most interested in watching Arsenal so I could see Bergkamp and Overmars. I still had a bit of a grudge against them because Ian Wright had given Tony Meola a ton of crap in 94 when USA beat England at Foxboro stadium in a world cup tune-up.

Eventually the style of football and what dwinkler frequently calls Arsenal's ability to punch over their weight class made them grow on me, and when I found this community of supporters I knew I had something I liked.

 

Stirling effort. And there Ladies and Gentlemen, we have the archetypal gooner fan, his soul bared to us all. Glory hunter...

 

Pretty much the same. Where I grew up it was split down the line.

 

What would this thread be without the archtypal jealous spurs reply? I suppose you're glad your mediocrity has kept all of us Americans from recognizing you as a relevant team?

No-one likes you, and you clearly DO care!

 

Grandfather lived in London,england hated spurs so then enemy of your enemy is your friend-----Father disliked english football until very recently,so i choose the league he hated I started watching right around when Arsenal got Wenger, and i hated ManU, well hated SAF as a person, so Arsenal or liverpool seemed like a good choice. But in the end, It was all about arsenal they just have wicked kits, have all of them from 91!

 

Everyone has to become a fan at sometime, the ones who are glory hunters will drift off to the new flavor-of-the-month. That is one nice thing about supporting Spurs, though, when you have a sucky team your only fans are loyal ones.

Interesting, Winston, that several other posters replied to this thread and were not necessarily glory hunters, but you chose to ignore their stories. Selective memory must be nice.

 

Honestly, I saw the Dreamcast jereys one day as I stumbled upon a picture of Arsenal. Being a loyal Dreamcast (there are dozens of us out there) player, I desperately wanted the jersey. I learned a little about the team and I was hooked. I guess it's easy to call us glory hunters considering someone like me is a relatively new fan. But all I know is that it took me months before I figured out what "the double" meant and that I'd never be a ManUre fan because they were called the "Yankees of soccer". As a loyal, die-hard Mets fan, that's all I needed to know.

 

Henrik (who started this thread) was the biggest influence on me picking Arsenal as my team to follow. I always enjoyed watching games on TV and I really liked Arsenals style, but I never picked one particulat team to follow. Henrik was so passionate about Arsenal and so I got really focused on them and have never looked back.

For many Americans who watch the games but don't know the culture of the sport, just really enjoy watching the EPL as a whole. I think when you find out that in England you pick one team and follow them and stay loyal to your team - that really influnced me to say that Arsenal is the one team that I really enjoy watching more than any other. I used to have long conversations with Henrik about the history of the team and the others in the league. From that point I still watch all the games, but have chosen Arsenal as my team to follow. My wife might want to have his head because all I talk about is Arsenal, but his wife would do the same over me getting him into collecting Who bootlegs.

So that's how it started years back and I would never think of changing my loyalties to the team. It even helps since joining BigSoccer and Arsenal America that there are so many great fans like most of you out there. I certainly enjoy talking football and especially Arsenal - can't really do that at home.

 

i was stuck at home for most of 2002 and had nothing to do but watch tv. so i was glue to WC'02 and it was fantastic. but when it ended i realised i really liked football so i thought i'd give the EPL a try. i saw this arsenal game and i remember watching henry and pires pass the ball to each other and it was beautiful. i loved the fluidity and friendship between them.

i just felt like arsenal had the most amazing chemistry compared to other teams. and i liked the fact that they were considered second best cuz to me, supporting the "best" is pretty boring (eg: ferrari and shumey)

so yeah, it was basically the fabulous attacking football that won me over. but i gotta say, the many goodlooking players don't hurt either...

 

I never decided, I was born into it.

Grew up in Elwood st, right next to the ground,all my family were Arsenal supporters, my mum worked at the ground for 15 years, so as a kid I used to get to meet all the players, when Pat rice was an Aprentice he used to work in the Greengrocers we used, his brother Alf used to be my barber

I have now been going to Highbury for 40 years.

 

I was converted to Bergianity after the '98 WC.

 

There seems to be a fairly even split between long-term fans and some recent "glory hunters". That isn't really very surprising. Not that I'm having a go at all, it's just interesting.

 

if someone takes an interest in soccer/football for a first time say last season and they watch EPL
they are constantly exposed to Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd.... obviously they are going to support one of those
they are'nt gonna say
Wow Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd play some great football...i think im gonna support Leicester City

 

my uncle lived in london and had always supported arsenal so when i was over visiting as a kid in the early/mid seventies he brought me to a match and that was it........an arsenal fan ever since (the northern ireland connections at the club back then probably confirmed it too)

 

When I was a boy In the 80's Pool were winning all so I was a Liverpool fan.

Then when I went to secondary school I decided that my child hood team probably didnt count cos I didnt really understand the game and just supported what my mayes told me too. So I switched to the winning Man U.

Trouble is Man U arnt as good as in the 90's and ticket prices are so high now I want to be ENTERTAINED for 90 minutes for my money, so I switched to the flamboyant (and winning) Arsenal.

Im thinking of giving Chelsea my full support next year, or maybe Tottenham Hotspur. Ill shout "Come on football, lets have another goal now please"

 

Just because you are regularly exposed to a team doesn't mean you need to support them blindly. I've been exposed to all of the big Italian, Spanish and German teams. Instead of supporting the biggest/most successful/most exposed, I looked into all of the teams, their players, club history, fans, etc. I then selected a team to follow from that. The teams in question were Palermo, Villareal and St Pauli. If you want to be a glory hunter, then fair enough. Personally, that's not for me because it's no fun at all.

 

I don't think that it's about being a "glory hunter" or we would all be Manure fans you twat. When you find a team that has a great coach and works together as a team well it's not always about glory. Wenger is a genius and that draws people to the team. I'd support them even if they were to be a mid-table team. I won't say relagated because I don't see it ever happening, but if it did, I'd still follow them. Just like the Green Bay Packers - I was going to games when they were winning 3 a season and still today as poor as they are doing. Not everyones a glory hunter.

 

Of course, but a fair proportion are. If you were a glory hunter you WOULD be supporting Arsenal, because they are currently the best team.